Panama: Experts Debate the 'Mal de Archivo' at a Symposium on Museum Memory
In Panama City, Panama, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC Panama) held the third edition of its "Volver al Archivo" (Return to the Archive) project. The event focused on rethinking the possibilities of the institutional archive through public interventions, highlighting the connection between community traditions (from Ocú) and the museum's memory.
The day began with the performance "Temporada de tamarindos (Ocú monumento ambulante)" (Tamarind Season), created by artist Joaquín Carrizo. Participation in this activity was free. To complement the public activation, the symposium "Mal de archivo en Panamá" (Archive Sickness in Panama) was held at 2:00 PM at the MAC Panama headquarters in Ancón.
The central objective of the project is to rethink the possibilities, deviations, and essence of the museum's memory and the institutional archive through public, affective, and poetic gestures. The conversation centered on archival practices in the country, aiming to think collectively about how the drive to archive is configured from the Panamanian context and its impact on the museum's memory.
The symposium featured a panel of experts: Ingmar Herrera, Director of the Fundación del Sonido; Georgina Tovar, Documentalist and archivist for the University Experimental Cinema Group (GECU); and Juliana Barría, Head of Digitization at the National Library of Panama. The dialogue was moderated by Liz Lasso.
Both events were free and offered the community an opportunity to interact directly with the museum's memory and the country's cultural context. This performative walk aimed to activate the vitality of community traditions by bringing a version of the National Manito Festival from Ocú into the city. The performance was conceived as a "monumental wanderer" and began its journey at 11:00 AM at Plaza Santa Ana.
